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‘Denise Mina is the finest contemporary exponent of crime fiction’ – The Times

Orion Fiction • January 2015

DENISE MINA Untitled

Two-time winner of the Theakston’s Award for Crime Writing, Denise Mina is back with her brilliant new Glasgow-set crime novel. DS Alex Morrow is called to a house where four children are living alone. Their mother, a high-flying lawyer, is missing and has been for five days. The assumption is that she has run off or been taken by a former partner. But why didn’t the children phone the police before now? A similar case is unfolding nearby, where the mother in a family has disappeared. The police working the case assume she is feckless and has run off because the family is struggling financially. But Morrow can see details: the children’s trousers are hemmed by hand, the floor is clean, there are plenty of books in the house. Plus, the children seem to be hiding something, the smaller ones kept away from the police and their alcoholic aunt has been drafted in so that they won’t have to go into care. With the help of Danny – in prison and acting as her consigliere – Morrow has to uncover a web of corruption and lies that runs from a small gangcontrolled estate up to the highest echelons of the Glasgow City Council. ‘Alex Morrow is a meticulously crafted character of depth and substance who succeeds in a patriarchal environment by virtue of her intelligence, persistence and humanity’ Irish Times ‘Mina’s crime novels are doing for Glasgow what Rankin did for Edinburgh’ Mail on Sunday Critically acclaimed Glaswegian crime writer Denise Mina is the author of eleven previous novels. She also writes short stories, plays and comics. Her Paddy Meehan novels have been made into critically acclaimed television dramas.